Here's how York says it cut the number of shootings in half from 2016 to 2017

Here are the latest top headlines from York County, Pennsylvania and the region.

York Daily Record

An initiative that targets group violence in York helped reduce the number of shootings in 2016 by more than half in 2017, according to York City Police.

The Group Violence Intervention program targets not only those pulling the triggers but also the groups those people might run with. That effort helped to reduce the number of shooting incidents from 67 in 2016 to 33 in 2017, said Lt. Matthew Leitzel and Jim Tice, project manager for York's GVI program.

A girl was injured in a shooting in the 600 block of East Philadelphia Street in November, ...more

A girl was injured in a shooting in the 600 block of East Philadelphia Street in November, according to York City Police. The number of shootings reported in York dropped from 67 in 2016 to 33 in 2017, York City Police said.

Teresa Boeckel, York Daily Record

"These individuals, the message we send is we know you ... and the next time gun violence occurs, we're not only going after you, we're going after your entire group," Leitzel said.

Each week members of law enforcement and others who work in related areas, such as adult probation, meet to discuss any developments or GVI cases. Those meetings allow for more opportunities for law enforcement to gather intelligence. The hope, Leitzel said, is to keep cutting down on group violence and violence overall in the community.

The GVI involvement isn't just in the form of consequences, Tice said. It's also designed to prevent crime when possible.

In one homicide case last year, Tice said, the victim's relative was having a particularly difficult time coping. There was concern the relative might do something to retaliate, so measures were taken to set that relative up with a counselor.

Tice said members of the various groups are asked "How can we keep you safe, alive and out of prison?" and then, through GVI, there's an effort to provide that support with the aim to curb future violence.

"It's not just law enforcement, it's a community effort that drives this," Tice said.

Although the number of shootings in York was down in 2017, the number of fatalities from shootings rose. Leitzel said police can't tie the fatality rate -- 16 deaths from the 33 shootings -- to anything in particular.

“Normally, our fatality rates are not 50 percent,” Leitzel said. “It’s unheard of to have that many people die as a result of shootings.”

Also striking about the statistics from 2017 is the fact that close to half of the homicides involved juveniles, Tice said.

Tice said the availability of guns continues to be a challenge.

“We all know there are way too many guns on the street,” Tice said.

Recently, the GVI program started working with partners in the schools and bringing them into weekly meetings to try to target the violence involving juveniles.

Leitzel and Tice said the hope is to continue to see a reduction in crime in York, and for people to see that York, as a whole, is not a bad or violent place.

"The vast majority of people in the city aren't bad people," Leitzel said. "They're great people."